Writer: Keith Allan
Director: John Gulager
Tonight, at sundown … the dead will live
Zombie Night follows two neighbouring families trying to get through a night when the dead come back to life. It’s billed as ‘A SyFy Original’, which is not a phrase that usually fills me with confidence; so does is movie any better than the usual SyFy fare?
First impressions aren’t promising. We open just as the (unexplained) outbreak is beginning and are quickly showered not just in hordes of undead but also in hordes of cliches, everything from corpses crawling out of graves to the local morgue. Expectations go even lower when we learn more about the two families; one includes a blind, elderly relative whilst the other includes a cute kid.
So for the first half hour or so I was very unimpressed. However to my surprise the film improved considerably in the second half. The actual zombie encounters were uninspired, but the interpersonal aspects were well handled. It was interesting to see the characters’ values and principles put to the test when forced to make a decision – and there choices weren’t always the obvious ones.
Gulager’s direction relies rather too heavily on shaky hand-held camerawork but apart from that is pretty decent and engaging.
So there is actually the basis of an interesting film here. What lets it own is the TV movie structure with its need for ten minute bite sized (ahem) chunks, each of which has to include at least one zombie attack. The result is too choppy and fails to maintain a coherent narrative or dramatic tension.
Ultimately Zombie Night doesn’t really work but it is at least watchable, which fir a SyFy Original is quite an achievement.